Rebooting issue

[UNHchabo]

So... I got an Aopen AX4SPE Max (P4 Socket 478) from a friend of mine, and built a machine out of some spare parts I had lying around. However, I have a recurring issue that I can't seem to fix so far...

Basically, every time I start the machine (either from a restart, or from a cold start), it goes into a "half-on" mode. The fans spin up, the power light is on, but USB devices are unpowered, the "Boot LED" is flashing, and the monitor doesn't get a signal. If IDE drives are hooked up, the HDD light is usually on, but with SATA drives hooked up, it's off.

After this power state, if I either hold the power button (wait the 5 seconds for it to shut off) and turn it back on, or if I hit the reset button, then it'll come back up into POST, and I can continue as normal. It's not a major issue, but it is annoying to reach over to the case in the course of a software-level restart.

This issue was not present when my friend owned the board, it's only been there since I installed my parts onto it. The issue was also not present when these same parts were installed on the board of a Dell Dimension 4600.

Even though I don't find it necessary, I'll give the full hardware summary, for completeness:

P4 3.2GHz Prescott, socket 478
AOpen AX4SPE Max (latest BIOS)
2x512MB Crucial DDR-400 RAM, 3-2-3-8
EVGA 6600GT AGP
Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATA/3Gbps drive
Ultra 500W PSU (I know... but it was cheap, and modular, and my last PSU was underpowered)
Sony DVD-RW drive

 

[ch33zw1z]

Could be a grounding problem with the mobo. It needs to sit just right in the case. Otherwise, gotta isolate devices to see if you get the same problem.

 

[UNHchabo]

If it were a grounding issue, would that really cause it to fail to boot exactly 50% of the time? I'd think that would make it either not boot at all, or it would be random and unpredictable.

I mean, I can test that, but that's a bit of a pain, and I'd rather not do it if I can avoid it.

 

[michal1980]

i would probably start by clearing the bios. pull the power, pull the battery.

dont know about that mobo, but alot of asus mobo's if they fail to post, pushing the rest button/power button resets the motherboad to a default state for it to try to boot again.

however it will not save those settings, and when you restrart again it will try to load its saved settings (which you see are crashing)